Beachbody Les Mills Combat Day 16 Review

What I did and why

Today was Day 16 of Beachbody Les Mills Combat! I stuck with it for 16 days. I only have 44 to go! I'm actually pretty surprised that I've managed to stick with it this long. I tend to get bored with doing the same workouts over and over again. I'm not finding myself bored with these. There are some that I like better than others, but I'm not bored. It's possible that it's working because I'm showing improvement in them. Doing these has actually made me think I could do PiYo. Well, it did until I actually watched some stuff on YouTube about what is involved in PiYo. It's crazy contortionist stuff! This big girl is scared of that stuff. Maybe once I'm done with Combat, I'll be better able to handle PiYo. Hm.....okay not likely, but I'm still contemplating it since it's on sale right now.

Power HIIT

This is a 30 minute HIIT workout. I give a play by play explanation of what happens in this workout on my Day 2 of Les Mills Combat Review. I will spare you the gory details again, but if you're interested, just refer back to that post.

I woke up before my alarm today! I wasn't super pumped about doing this workout because the HIIT ones just aren't as fun. There's lunges and squats and really who wants to do lunges and squats. I got up and procrastinated at first. I did manage to pull it together in enough time to get the workout in and make it to work on time. SCORE!

I discovered that I wasn't doing the "clean" correctly. There's some movement in the shoulders that I just wasn't doing. After correcting that little issue midway though this workout, I discovered that it really works your shoulders in a crazy way when you do them correctly. I barely made it through the last set. I remember the first time getting through it without major shoulder pain. Although, I did do push ups yesterday so my shoulders were a little weak today. They weren't in pain, but they were a bit weak.

I did some of the jumping sumo squat things that they did, but my bra was just not cut out for that stuff so I eventually went back to the modified version. I squatted deeper and did deeper lunges today! I did backward lunges instead of the leg going forward thing like the modified person does though. I just don't do well with the forward lunges. My balance is horrible with them and It takes me forever to get my stance right. I don't seem to step forward enough to go deep enough into the lunge. I'll work on that over time, but for now, I'll do rear lunges when I feel the need to. I was pretty stoke about doing deeper squats though. My legs are all tingly tonight. I don't think I'll be in pain tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll have weak and quivering thighs tomorrow. 

I still hate the burpees. I'm not sure that I did any better with them today. I haven't made it to the point where I can kick my legs back. I'm still walking them back. I feel like I was less out of breath for them. I feel like I held the push up position better with them. I don't actually do the push ups since I do the modified version. I do try to do the squats, but I don't do the jumping ones. 

Other than the never ending burpees, the workout seemed to go pretty fast. That could just be because yesterday's workout was 63 minutes and this was only 30. 

 

Overall thoughts on this workout

I'm getting stronger. I'm happy about that. My whole reason for losing weight is to be stronger cardiovasularly as well as muscularly so I can do hikes in places that I just can't do right now. I'm going to climb South Sister! The year we moved here, my husband said that he was going to climb South Sister and he wanted me to go with him. I told him he was insane because I don't do inclines! Now, I'm the one pushing to get to the top of South Sister. I also want to try going to the top of Black Butte this summer. Next summer is South Sister, but this summer, I want to go up Black Butte again. I did it once, but I want to see what it's like after working out all summer. After this week, I feel like Les Mills Combat will help me get to the top of Black Butte. It's helping my leg muscles get stronger and it's helping me have more endurance. Even when I was 30 pounds lighter than I am today, I had to stop soooooooooo often when climbing hills. I'm stopping less and I can breathe better on the inclines. My leg muscles aren't getting to the point where I can only move my legs an inch at a time. I'm serious about that inch at a time thing. There were some sections on Black Butte that my feet literally moved an inch with each step. My strides are longer. i always had more steps than my husband when we went hiking, but we're evening out now. I'm not having to babystep my way up the inclines! It's very exciting.

BodyMedia Screen Shots

Here are the screen shots. This one finally looks like a HIIT workout. Oh and HIIT is High Intensity Interval Training for those of you who didn't know that. These workouts don't really follow a specific patter though like most HIIT stuff I've done before. The weird part though, the warm up appears more intense than the workout. I know that some of that is because I modify so much. The burpees should really be pushing my heart rate up there, but I just can't do them right so I don't get the burn that I should.